We propose an atom-cavity chip that combines laser cooling and trapping of
neutral atoms with magnetic microtraps and waveguides to deliver a cold atom to
the mode of a fiber taper coupled photonic bandgap (PBG) cavity. The
feasibility of this device for detecting single atoms is analyzed using both a
semi-classical treatment and an unconditional master equation approach.
Single-atom detection seems achievable in an initial experiment involving the
non-deterministic delivery of weakly trapped atoms into the mode of the PBG
cavity.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
